Mack Agreement Hits Snag

April 28, 1987|by DAN PEARSON And DAN SHOPE, The Morning Call

An unexpected tiff over the right of United Auto Workers members in Allentown to transfer to Mack Trucks' new assembly plant in Winnsboro, S.C., appeared yesterday to be jeopardizing the heralded 5 1/2 -year tentative agreement reached April 23 during marathon bargaining outside Washington, D.C.

The dispute affects workers at the 5C Allentown assembly plant, scheduled to close in November with the loss of 1,500 jobs, and at the Macungie assembly facility, most members of Lehigh Valley Local 677.

Local 677 President Kim Blake conceded yesterday that the question of automatic recognition of the UAW in Winnsboro - workers being transferred as UAW members - would be decided by arbitration in Philadelphia May 5.

But chief UAW negotiator Bill Casstevens, Blake said, assured Local 677's leadership in Washington that the agreement included a provision for direct transfer of eligible Mack employees desiring to work in the Winnsboro plant.

"We only know what we were told by Casstevens. The company is reneging on its word and we will not take the agreement to our membership for a ratification vote unless the transfer right is spelled out veryclearly," Blake said after talking to Casstevens several times on the phone.

"The company must realize that if there is no transfer agreement we have no contract," he said.

When Blake's statement was posed last night to top Mack officials, Walter C. Meck, executive vice president of finance and a key figure behind the negotiations mediated by William Usery, said: "As part of the total package that was negotiated in Washington, D.C., the parties agreed to carve out all of the Winnsboro issues and submit them to arbitration."

A UAW International source close to the situation confirmed the contract snag and indicated it is a serious obstacle to ratification.

Blake and his bargaining team met yesterday morning in Allentown with Mack negotiators reportedly to iron out local issues not resolved in Washington and to agree on contract language. Sitting in for W. Dennis Guinan, Mack's chief negotiator, was Stephen Diacont, director of employee relations.

Blake said he informed Diacont of the union's dissatisfaction with the master contract language and said there would be no more meetings on local issues until it was cleared up.

Although the exact content of the tentative agreement has not been disclosed, one thing was clear last night - none of the four local unions involved will be voting on ratification Sunday, a target date suggested a by George Smith of Baltimore, director of UAW region 8.

"We may not be voting for many weeks and possibly not at all unless there is a transfer agreement," Blake said.

A meeting between Mack negotiators and officers of Local 171, Hagerstown, Md., is scheduled in that city today to tackle local issues at the Hagerstown facilities where engines and transmissions are manufactured. Local President Jim Stewart and Shop Committee Chairman Bill Nutter met with their Hagerstown bargainers yesterday in preparation for the session.

Walter Meck's statement about concurrence to "carve out" the Winnsboro matters from the contract issues goes back to a joint agreement earlier this month that would send transfer rights to arbitration and involve fresh talks about wages and pensions. That accord brought the parties back to the bargaining table after a long stalemate.

Blake, who was not invited to the bargaining table in Washington when master-contact issues were considered, said it is obviously the company's view that all of the Winnsboro issues be settled by Arbitrator Arthur Stark of New York, whose decision will have the force of the court.

When Casstevens returned to Detroit after the nationally-covered settlement, he issued a short statement on April 24. It read, "Tentative agreement has been reached on terms of a new master contract between the UAW and Mack Trucks Inc. subject to the union's receipt of language properly reflecting the terms of the settlement. . . . "

Blake concurred with Casstevens last night that the master contract language on Winnsboro transfers "does not reflect" what the International UAW, a signatory to the pact, agreed to in Washington.